Research Areas

Our faculty's research diversity has resulted in numerous collaborations among principal investigators as they discover common themes and approaches within their research programs. The faculty has also excelled in transferring its research technology to the marketplace. Many of UAlberta's spin-off companies originated in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Research has always been the strength of the faculty. We have one of the largest faculties of pharmacy in Canada that excels in transferring its research to the marketplace. Our academic staff’s research interests are of the most diverse on campus.

Pharmacy Practice

Clinical

Patient oriented research conducted with human subjects; it includes mechanisms of human disease, therapeutic interventions, clinical trials, development of new technologies (National Institute of Heath).

Education

A field of inquiry aimed at advancing knowledge of education and learning processes and development of the tools and methods necessary to support this endeavor.(American Educational Research Association).

Social Administrative

The "people" aspect of pharmacy and medication use. Focusing on the scientific and humanistic bases for understanding and influencing interactions involving patients, medicines, caregivers, and health care systems (University of Wisconsin).

Pharmaceutical Sciences

Cardiovascular

Computational Drug Discovery

Drug Delivery

A field that concentrates on formulation methods and technologies that are employed to transport pharmaceutical compounds to various sites in the body. It may include synthetic drug carrier systems capable of improving the bioavailability and/or tissue-specific targeting of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to the site of desired drug action, such as bone drug delivery, or drug targeting of cancer cells.

Medical Chemistry

Neurology/Critical Care

Research in this area aims for improving outcomes in patients with neurological emergencies (subarachnoid hemorrhage, intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury and status epilepticus) and patients with epilepsy through pharmacotherapy optimization of existing therapies and translation of new treatments.

Obesity/Type 2 Diabetes

Pharmacodynamics

Studies what a drug does to the body. Drug effect involves receptor binding, post-receptor effects, and biochemical interactions. It is a drug's pharmacokinetics that determines the onset, duration, and intensity of a drug's effect.

Pharmacogenomics

Pharmacokinetics

Studies what the body does to a drug. This field deals with the movement of a drug over time into, through, and out of the body via the processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and transport.

Pharmacometrics

An emerging science that quantifies drug, disease, and clinical trial information for drug development. Originally focusing on concentration-effect, does-effect, and PKPD relationships. It has expanded to develop disease models and quantitative relationships between biomarkers and clinical response.